In the latest bit of “don’t trust anything on deadline day,” the Daily Mail are reporting that “Aston Villa are looking to offload Tommy Elphick and Gabriel Agbonlahor today from their wage bill.” We’ve already covered the Agbonlahor bit here, but it’s worth mentioning why the Elphick rumour is also probably wrong. And this is a really simple one.
Tommy Elphick will not be sold because Aston Villa do not have a lot of central defenders.
There we go. Rumour debunked. Without some sort of corresponding move, Aston Villa almost literally cannot afford to be rid of Elphick. Sure, he’s lost his starting spot, but beyond James Chester and Nathan Baker, Elphick is the next in line to fill in the central defense. After that it’s... uh... Kevin Toner? Micah Richards?
Yeah, there’s no depth there. Aston Villa can’t afford to lose another centre back, so Elphick will be sticking around. All of this can change, of course, if Steve Bruce finds himself another couple of central defenders today, but that seems pretty unlikely.